


to go, to follow, to kneel at your feet

by arahir



Series: to go, to follow [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blade of Marmora Keith (Voltron), Captivity, Fuck Or Die, Gladiator Shiro (Voltron), M/M, keith: but papa i love him, kolivan: ....god
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2018-12-31 08:22:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12128412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arahir/pseuds/arahir
Summary: They think it will be funny to leave him with a Galra in heat.It whimpers. It's a sound of pure pain, one Shiro's heard a hundred times now in the arena. The sound of something wounded and helpless; the sound of something that knows it."Are you hurt?" Shiro asks in the bare silence of the cell, and moves a few steps closer.The creature on the floor twitches violently at his voice. It's not dressed like the other prisoners. It's hard to tell in the poor lighting but the back of its skin-tight suit is glowing in circuits, the same purple he's come to associate with the Galra. "I won't hurt you," he says, softer.It doesn't make a sound but its back arches, head lifting from the floor, dragging black hair along the floor. It's dripping wet with blood or sweat. Shiro realizes the small sound he's barely been registering is breath—it's panting. It rolls, just enough to eye Shiro through its dark bangs.He. It's a boy, and he's beautiful.





	to go, to follow, to kneel at your feet

"We gave him something to speed things along," the guard says as they shove Shiro back in the cell.

It doesn't immediately make sense, but his peripheral sense of danger has been honed over weeks and months; he sees the figure in the corner as soon as he steps in the door and the guards slam it shut behind him.

The figure is small, curled in on itself against the wall on the other side of the door. A good place to catch someone unwitting by surprise, but something's not right about the way it's lying there.

It's a trap, almost without a doubt. A year into captivity, he’s seen it all, and lost it all; his freedom, the Holts, his arm. The Galra never give without taking in equal or greater measure.

It whimpers. It's a sound of pure pain, one Shiro's heard a hundred times now in the arena. The sound of something wounded and helpless; the sound of something that knows it.

"Are you hurt?" Shiro asks in the bare silence of the cell, and moves a few steps closer.

The creature on the floor twitches violently at his voice. It's not dressed like the other prisoners. It's hard to tell in the poor lighting but the back of its skin-tight suit is glowing in circuits, the same purple he's come to associate with the Galra. "I won't hurt you," he says, softer.

It doesn't make a sound but its back arches, head lifting from the floor, dragging black hair along the floor. It's dripping wet with blood or sweat—both, most likely. If it's acting, it's good. Shiro realizes, the small sound he's barely been registering is breath—it's panting. The painful arch of its back eases after a moment, its head falling back to the floor with a deliberate clang, almost frustrated. It rolls, just enough to eye Shiro through its dark bangs.

He. It's a he, and he's beautiful, and he's _human_ —but not totally. Not with eyes like that, pure violet blinking up at him the same way Shiro is blinking down at him. His gaze is glassy, with pain or something else, skin a shade too pale to be healthy.

"You..." The voice is hoarse, but threaded with recognition that doesn't belong there. The only people that know Shiro are light years distant, unless—

 _Champion_.

Of course. That's what they've started calling him. His time in the arena has made him a legend, for reasons he still can't wrap his head around, because he's done nothing but survive. It all clicks into place: this isn't a trap for Shiro, or some bizarre trick—this is a punishment for _him_.

The boy clenches his eyes shut and shudders, arching again, feet scrabbling against the floor. It's not pain. He has one of his arms crossed over his chest, his hand buried between his legs.

_We gave him something to speed things along._

Yes. This is how the Galra would punish someone. This is how the Galra would punish one of their own. Humiliation, in the most profound sense. The boy on the floor is wounded already. The arm that isn't clenched between his legs is lying limp on the floor behind him—dislocated, maybe, or sprained. If he's been in a fight, and if he's ended up here, there are only two options: either he fought for the Galra Empire and lost, or he fought against them and was captured.

The strange lines of his armor, the cast of his skin, the sheer effort that's gone into this elaborate show of debasement, points to the latter. There's someone out there fighting against the Empire, and he's a part of it. The boy is important enough to be made a show of.

He whimpers again, and moves his hand while his legs thighs move reflexively against the pressure. It's heart wrenching to watch. He's not looking at Shiro anymore, eyes clenched shut against what must be pain as much as desire. "Let me help you," Shiro pleads, and hopes it gets through the haze of whatever is clouding the boy's mind.

It works.  He opens his eyes on slits, the bright violet reflecting the light of the cell, and nods. Shiro almost misses it, or misses that it's on purpose and directed at him, because the boy is shaking hard. It's fear, he thinks at first, until he catches the defiance in his gaze.

No, not a Galra soldier brought low. He's a fighter—the kind of kid that would have left a reputation at the Garrison, the kind of kid that no one would spar with after the first month because no one wanted a black eye and everyone knew he wouldn't pull his punches. He's the kind of fighter that plays for keeps, and the risk isn't lost on Shiro as the boy eyes him and wets his lips.

He closes his eyes and rolls his shoulder against the confines of the suit he’s wearing. "Help me get this off." His voice is a scratch, and it's not a request. Shiro can either take this on or let it go, sit on the other side of the cell and risk nothing, but it's no choice at all. He hasn't had anything left to lose in a long time.

It takes a ridiculously long minute to figure out how the suit comes apart.

The boy flinches at the first touch and bites his lip to cut off a moan; he's fever-hot under Shiro's fingers. There's no zipper, no seam. It's one solid mass of black-violet material that reminds him of military-issue Kevlar, rough and immalleable under his fingers—for a moment he's worried it won't come off at all, but there’s an obvious solution. Nothing stands up against the arm they gave him.

He rolls the boy so he can see his face. His white skin is splotched red and sheened with sweat, and he's bitten through his lip. There's a bead of blood welling up at the split. Pain. This isn't pure hurt, but it's meant to torture, and the natural assumption is that the longer it takes, the worse it will get. "Can I—" Shiro raises his robotic arm.

The boy's eyes dart to it, and then to Shiro's face; he nods and gasps, "Cut it off."

It comes apart under his fingers, the fabric hissing and melting as he works down the spine of it, revealing pale skin and bruises. The boy's body is riddled with them, some so new they're still red and swollen, not even dark yet. The shoulder is the worst, and he tries to maneuver that arm out of the skin-tight fabric without making it worse.

The rest goes easier. Shiro has to hold down his body with his human hand because the boy keeps arching against his touch and he doesn’t have enough control over the arm to know how to not burn him with it. He keeps the boy's back to him as he works the material overt his hips and down his legs, making he's faced toward the wall Shiro found him against.

The Galra will be watching. He's not so naive to think they don't have cameras in the cell; the best he can do is preserve some of the boy's dignity.

He discards the ruined suit and leans down. "Can you sit up?"

The boy flinches, but nods after a moment and rolls onto his stomach, bracing the hand of his good arm against the floor. He can only raise himself to his knees before his arm starts shaking so bad it looks like he might collapse. Shiro gives up pretense, braces him with hands high on his waist, lifting him. The sound he makes at the contact isn't human. The foreign sound of it sends fear thrilling up Shiro's spine, but he makes a reflexive soothing sound and helps the boy across the room. Shiro’s lap is the only soft place to sit, and at least this way he’ll block the worst of it from prying eyes.

They're across from the door, and unless the guards start leering through the thin gap window, they'll have a modicum of privacy. Nothing is visible but the boy's back, and he's small enough that Shiro can shield most of him with an arm. It's as far from ideal as possible, and the best he can do.

The boy doesn't object; he props his legs around Shiro’s waist and wraps his undamaged arm around Shiro's neck, butting his head into Shiro's shoulder. Shiro knows it's solely due whatever drug is running through the boy's system, but it sends his heart thudding and something protective and primal rearing up in the back of his mind. Killing isn't a life—it's survival. He hasn't had anything to take care of in a long time.

"What should I call you?" he asks, and prays the boy isn't so senseless that he won't remember to give a fake name. If they have video, they have audio. Nothing is a secret here.

The boy raises his head and wets his lips. "Keith," he whispers after a moment, and then presses his face back against Shiro's shoulder.

"I’m Shiro,” he says. The Galra already know everything there is to know about him; there's no point in hiding his name from anyone.

Shiro lays the cool metal of his hand against the boy’s damp neck, trying to parse out what he needs to know and what’s safe for the boy to tell him. “Can you tell me what they gave you?” he settles on, finally.

Keith takes a deep, painful sounding breath, and shakes his head. "An injection—I don't—I don't know what's happening." His voice is still hoarse, almost to the point of being incomprehensible. The undercurrent of fear is unmistakable; it sends Shiro’s heart kicking again.

"Shh. It's ok," Shiro says against his damp hair. "I'm not going to hurt you. I won't let them hurt you. We'll figure it out."

The arm around his neck squeezes tighter and then pulls away as the boy reaches between them, taking himself in hand. Shiro focuses on the door over Keith’s head, keeping one hand on the back of his neck, steadying. He’s quivering, making small, muffled sounds that still don’t sound like pleasure.

It takes a long time—too long. He stops finally, makes a frustrated sound that’s half a sob and thuds his forehead forward.

"I can't—I can't,” he says, voice breaking.

Shiro shuts his eyes, and reaches down, closing his hand over the Keith's and the smooth skin there, helping him move. It's been years since he traded hand jobs at the Garrison, but it's not a skill you lose—it's barely a skill at all.

Keith moans at the added pressure, the breath against Shiro's neck going shallow. The hand under his is smaller, thinner; Shiro's hand dwarfs it as they move together.

Still nothing. Shiro thumbs over the head of his dick, presses down, and shoves aside the vicarious thrill of pleasure that shoots through him at Keith's moan. "Hey, hey," Shiro says softly, "it's ok, Keith, you can do it. Come for me."

Keith sobs again and ruts into their hands, once, twice—and nothing.

"Inside," he says, voice breaking against Shiro's neck. "I think it has to be inside, please—"

His meaning is unmistakable, and—that's a problem. That's a massive problem, because it’s painfully obvious this isn’t something he’s done before and that's too much for him. But he's already an exhausted wreck and Shiro has to do something.

He brings the fingers of his human hand to Keith's mouth, pressing against his lips. Keith shoots him a startled look, through his exhaustion. "Suck," Shiro says softly. "It'll help. I don't want to hurt you." It won't, not really, but it's all they have.

Keith gets it. He opens his mouth, pulls in the two fingers Shiro offered him, rolling his tongue over them until there's drool running out the corner of his mouth and he's panting around them.

Shiro catches himself staring and forces his breath to something measured as he moves his free hand from it’s spot at the back of Keith’s neck and down his back. Keith flinches at the touch—the metal is warm, but it must feel foreign and Shiro’s just getting to the point where he trusts it himself. He dips the fingers lower, trying to broadcast his movements so it won't take Keith by surprise, rubbing low into his back against the dip of muscle there. Keith's shaking, and it's not in pleasure, but there's nothing else he can do for him.

He's as lost as Keith, and this is still painful to bare witness to.

When he can’t put it off any longer, he pulls the fingers out of Keith’s mouth with a wet sound. Keith meets his eyes for a moment—gaze glassy, pupils blown—and nods. He wraps his arm around Shiro’s neck again, bracing himself.

It's not enough. Spit isn't much, and the first intrusion is barely better than dry. He knows it hurts because Keith tenses, his knees rising against Shiro's sides, thighs shaking. Shiro shushes him again, though he's not making any noise. "Relax, I've got you, I'm not going to hurt you."

It becomes a mantra while he presses in further, trying to find—

Keith keens and presses back against his hand, arching. There. Shiro seizes on it, moving against it while Keith shakes apart in his hands. There are nails against his back, through the ragged crop top and black under armor the Galra gave him. He barely gets a hand on Keith before he's coming with a sharp cry against Shiro’s neck.

Shiro fights down the brief urge he has to capture the sound against his mouth, sobered by the reality of it.

What if this really is Keith’s first time? With a gladiator in a dingy cell on an enemy ship, beaten and drugged out of his mind? He pulls his fingers out and wraps his arm around Keith's back, trying to soothe him through it. Keith is still breathing hard against his neck, open-mouthed, almost like he's trying scent the skin there with little gasping inhales.

Shiro lets him come down, wiping the mess in his hand off on his own leg. This is going to be ok, one way or the other. He'll find a way out of this for them both, he thinks distantly, and spreads his metal hand against the hot line of Keith's spine.

Keith nuzzles into his neck at the touch—it’s the drug, Shiro reminds himself like a mantra—and whispers a quiet "Thank you," against his skin.

His voice is clear for the first time since Shiro found him, and it's lovely, accented with something warm and familiar. But then Keith takes a deep, shuddering breath. "It's not over. I think—I think it's heat."

Shiro has no idea what that is or what that means, but the shake in Keith's voice says enough.

“How long will it last?” Shiro asks softly.

Keith doesn’t respond for a moment, but then he swallows. “I don’t know. It’s my first time.”

And there it is, the thing he was most scared of. Shiro feels the floor drop out from under him.

“A week, I think. Usually,” Keith amends.

A week, stuck in this cell, like this. It really is a torture, and who's to say the Galra will even let him stay that long? Shiro fights in the arena once, twice a week. How can he protect Keith if he's not there?

He moves his hand against Keith's back in his best approximation of comforting, even as panic bubbles up in the back of his mind. A week of this, and nothing Keith has been through before. But there's muscle under his hand, solid and corded—the boy is a fighter, and the boy is important. If he’s important, he’s strong. Between the two of them, they'll get through this.

Keith presses his nose against Shiro's neck,  the same way he has been, but more insistent, and then he judders his hips forward against Shiro's abdomen and whines. He's hard again, already.

"I've got you," Shiro says, and means it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Keith goes two more rounds before he passes out in Shiro's arms, a boneless mess, sweat-soaked and covered in his own come because cleaning him is a losing battle. Shiro strips out of the loose half-shirt they gave him and pulls it over Keith's  head without jostling his weight out of Shiro's lap; his legs are going to go numb if they sleep like this, but there's no obvious alternative that won't end up making Keith more miserable. Space is cold, and Shiro is the warmest thing in there.

The low grade desire that's been thrumming through his veins and keeping him half hard since this started drains away little by little. He smooths the tangles out of Keith's hair absently, for his own comfort more than anything else.

He's nearly asleep when he feels eyes on him.

Yellow eyes in the slit window, glaring in at him. There's a mask over the lower half of the Galra's pale, pointed face. It’s familiar, in the worst way. Shiro goes on high alert in an instant, hunching his shoulders and spreading his hands wide over Keith's back against the stranger’s gaze. The eyes in the window meet his glare and widen—and then he's gone.

He’s helpless here, like this. But he has something to protect while he can, he thinks, and lets Keith’s soft breath against his neck lull him under.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He wakes up lying on the floor, their legs tangled, a body pulled tight against his chest.

It’s the best sleep he’s had since he woke up on a slab table missing an arm; all of the familiar panic that usually plagues him when he wakes up in the cell is replaced by something warm. He’s not alone. It takes him a moment to orient himself, to remember what happened, but he doesn’t consider letting go of the body in his arms.

There’s already a hardness pressed against his thigh. Even in sleep, Keith is rolling his hips in little erratic motions, trying to find release.

Shiro holds him there with a hand low on his back, pulling him in tight. He’s hard too, but it’s not the time or the place, and the thought of getting off to Keith’s pain is enough to flag his desire.

Keith blinks awake at the touch, his eyelashes tickling Shiro’s throat. He tenses for a moment, going through the same cycle of realization that Shiro did, but then he sighs and nuzzles in closer. It’s so casual, so affectionate, so trusting, Shiro’s heart rises to his throat. The top of his head is a few inches from Shiro’s mouth, his hair stiff with dried sweat, heavy with the smell of it, and still Shiro has to resist the sudden urge to press his lips against it.

That second day it occurs to him—Keith can't talk and risk revealing anything, but Shiro has no secrets.

He tells stories about the Garrison, about Matt, about Iverson, about failing his first sim test and the dog he had growing up and everything in between. It distracts Keith, until the desire takes over again and he needs touch.

Rinse and repeat.

“Did you really cry?” Keith asks against his neck in a still moment, after Shiro finishes telling him about his second sim test, which was as much a literal wreck as the first. “I can’t imagine.”

Shiro nods, scratching his fingers up and down Keith’s back. He’s languid and damp in Shiro’s arms—not with sweat, for once. Shiro gave most of his food and water rations to Keith, and sacrificed the rest to the noble task of cleaning him up as best he could. “I mixed up the controls. It took two of the instructors to pull me out of there.”

Keith laughs—actually laughs, soft and bright and right against Shiro’s chest. “I’ve been there,” he says. “The first time I was in a simulator I almost broke it. They had to climb in and talk me down—” He cuts himself off and tenses, shifting so he can meet Shiro’s eyes with an apology.

Not the time, not the place. Shiro digs his fingers in, somewhere between comforting and frustrated. More than anything, in this moment, he wants to know the person in his arms. Who he is, where he came from, if he likes to fly, like Shiro does—anything. He wants to hear Keith’s voice, wants to hear him talk about something that isn’t being stuck in this hell. Shiro’s had nothing but his own thoughts and the arena and blood for so long.

It’s on the tip of his tongue, some innocuous question, but then Keith shudders. The movement is familiar by now, and Shiro is pushing inside him before Keith has to ask. He’s more relaxed now, well practiced; the slide is as easy as it’s going to get, but still raw.

“Wait,” Keith says, breathless. Shiro pulls out and stills as Keith leans back enough to look up at Shiro through his bangs. “The other hand, please?“

It takes him aback. Shiro still doesn’t trust the new arm enough for that, and he has the sudden, horrific thought that it’s what the Galra have been waiting for the whole time. The image is so grotesque he has to close his eyes and breathe past it for a long, silent moment, until he feels fingers on his face. He opens his eyes to Keith’s a few inches away, wide and concerned. He’s cupping Shiro’s face with one hand, head cocked to the side a little.

“I can’t,” Shiro says. “I’m sorry, I—“

Keith covers his mouth with a hand, cutting him off. “It’s ok.” His eyes are still wide, scanning over Shiro’s face like there’s something he wants to say, or something he’s trying to figure out. He leans back in Shiro’s lap, letting his gaze trail down Shiro’s neck, across the skin-tight cloth stretch over his shoulders and chest, and then to the joint where metal meets flesh on his right side.

He raises a hand, but hesitates, meeting Shiro’s eyes with a question. Shiro nods.

The feel of Keith’s fingers against the scar tissue there is foreign. Touch doesn’t really get through, coming across as a deep, tingling itch, and the metal isn’t much better. Keith runs his fingers over the seam, feather light, and then trails down the arm, picking it up at the elbow with gentle hands. The black at the inside of it is more sensitive, not true metal; he still hasn’t figured out what it’s made out of. He gives an involuntary jerk as Keith drags the pads of his fingers over it.

Keith glances at him, and then back, tracing the joints between panels, until he gets to the hand. He turns it over, and presses his own hand flat against the palm, comparing the size. His hand is thinner by comparison, fitting over his in perfect symmetry, pale against the black. There’s something intimate about this, more so than anything else they’ve done.

He meets Shiro’s eyes, pupils wide, and then pulls the hand to his mouth and brushes his lips along the knuckles, where black meets metal. His lips are damp; it steals Shiro’s breath. Keith holds his gaze, turns it over, and presses a kiss to his palm.

It’s the heat, Shiro reminds himself, past the thudding behind his ribs. It’s just the heat.

Keith gets worse as the day goes on. He wants to ask if it's normal, but the one time he tries Keith gives him a desperate look and shakes his head. This is new for him, and there's no known quantity to it except for how long it will last, maybe. 

But he gets worse.

It takes longer and longer to bring him off, until finally what he’s been doing stops working all together. Shiro doesn’t realize until they’ve been going at it for so long his arms are aching and Keith is panting in his ear, out of pain as much as pleasure. He’s a raw nerve, oversensitive in all the wrong ways, wet and exhausted. Shiro is whispering nonsense in his hair, encouraging, trying to push him past that edge.

“Come on, Keith.” He’s painfully hard under Shiro’s hand. “It’s ok, you’re doing so good, _come on_ —” Keith keens against his ear, high and thready, and digs his nails into Shiro’s back—but nothing.

Fatigue cuts his strings, finally. All the tenseness falls out of him, even though he’s still hard; he collapses, trembling. Shiro pulls his hands away, nerves shot.

“Can I try something?” Shiro asks. Keith nods, but doesn’t look up.

Shiro pushes him back, lowering him to the floor with a hand under his shoulder until he’s lying flat, legs still raised up around Shiro’s waist. It’s been years, and he was never great at it, but he’s desperate. They both are. Keith doesn’t look at him, drained and spun out—still beautiful.

There's no reason to think sucking him off will work when nothing else has, but the thought of fucking him dry in a dirty cell, the thought of _that_ being his first time, is nauseating. No. It won't work, he thinks, but it's something, and it's easier than facing up to that.

He beats back the urge to pull Keith's leg up, ghost his lips down to the dark hair at the junction of his thighs. It’s still not his place. It won’t ever be, he thinks, and leans forward to mouth over the head of Keith’s cock.

The reaction is instantaneous. Keith cries out, thrusts upward, and it takes conscious effort to keep himself from gagging or letting his teeth go where they shouldn’t. He tries to pin Keith to the floor, but he’s _strong_ —as strong as Shiro, or stronger. Keith braces his feet flat against the floor, using the leverage to thrust in, senseless with need. He buries a hand in Shiro’s hair, holding him there, grip so tight it hurts.

Shiro forces himself to relax, consciously, focusing on breathing through his nose, focusing the in-out slide and the sounds Keith is making. Keith raises one leg, hooking it over his shoulder, pressing down between his shoulder blades. He’s pure muscle, Shiro realizes with a thrill. The low-grade desire that’s been his constant companion kicks back up in full force—he's aching with it.

Keith tugs on his hair, pushing deeper; Shiro moans around it, and that’s all it takes.

He’s as bad at swallowing as he remembers. It’s messy, but everything about this is messy. Keith uncurls his fingers from Shiro’s hair slowly, but keeps his hand there, carding his fingers through it where it’s getting long on top again. It feels good, sends something warm flooding through his chest. He turns to the side, pressing a kiss against the inside of Keith’s thigh.

The hand in his hair stills. “Sorry,” Keith offers, still breathless.

Shiro isn’t sure what he’s talking about until he tries to ask, and can’t find his voice.

“It’s fine,” he says, once he can speak past the soreness. He scoots forward enough to lay his head against Keith’s stomach and the trailing of hair there, resting, listening to Keith breathe while the hand pets through his bangs.

They’re both shot, exhausted, and in desperate need of a bath, but if he was offered a bed and a shower and five course meal, he wouldn’t move from that spot. He’s still hard, but it’s not imperative; he lets desire pull at him, savoring the sensation of having something warm and solid under his hands.

Dangerous. This is dangerous. He’s going to lose this before he even has it, and he’s going to lose himself if he gets any deeper, he thinks, but then Keith sighs and scratches at his scalp. Shiro glances up; Keith’s smiling down at him, eyes soft and affectionate.

It’s the heat, he reminds himself faintly. It’s not real.

It doesn’t stop the warmth that floods through his chest—doesn’t even stem it. No. There’s no point in trying to pull out of this dive.

He returns the smile, and they lie like that, wrapped together for some interminable amount of time until that peripheral sense of danger scratches at his spine again.

He glances up at the window and finds yellow eyes staring down at them. It’s the same Galra as before, and it’s jarring to realize that he has no idea how long he’s been watching. All the lax warmth flooding through him drains away in an instant—

But again, the Galra’s eyes go wide, and he’s gone.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He must fall asleep first this time, because he wakes up with his head in Keith’s lap. When he looks up, Keith is clear eyed and the hand resting against his neck is warm, but not fever hot. Keith is leaned against the wall across the door, and Shiro realizes with a start that Keith had to move him deliberately to get them there.

“Hey,” Keith says, wiping his thumb down Shiro’s neck, smiling. “We’re both a mess.”

Shiro nods, sitting up with a groan. The floors don’t get easier to sleep on. His black body suit smells and it’s stiff and stained in more places than he wants to think about. The ragged crop top that’s Keith’s only clothing isn’t in much better shape, and they can’t afford to waste water on cleaning up. “The Galra aren’t big on showers.”

“We are,” Keith frowns. “Just not—here.”

It floors him, for a moment.

Galra. He is Galra, after all. Questions burn through his mind, and absolutely none can be answered here. Shiro gives a quiet little, “Oh,” instead, and leans back against the wall beside Keith, glancing over at him. “Are you all right?”

Keith closes his eyes, taking a deep breath. “It’s not bad right now. Sorry again—I don’t have control—“

Shiro takes his hand. “I said already, it’s fine.” There’s still a trace of hoarseness in his voice, but it’s nothing he regrets.

They lean together there, dozing in and out. He’s never had this with anyone before—this easy, quiet companionship. They settle into each other’s space like they belong there. It’s the heat, he tells himself again, one last time, needing to have the last word on this with himself, but then Keith turns into his shoulder and presses a kiss above the black cloth on his neck, and it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but this.

He’s jolted to full-waking by the doors of his cell clanging open.

Three guards file in without preamble—Shiro is up in an instant, trying to shield Keith from sight, for what it’s worth. Not much. The guards barely glance at Keith.

“You have a fight.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

He goes, without complaint.

There’s a moment when he wants to look back at Keith, say something reassuring, but with the guards there he doesn’t want to reveal anything. He doesn’t know what will garner their attention, what will put Keith in danger, or help him, so he settles for saying nothing and looking nowhere but straight ahead.

The hallways are bare. There's nothing to distract him. The distant roar of the arena starts as a dull buzz and gets louder, until he can’t hear what the guards say to him as they shove him toward the light at the end of the ahllway. It doesn’t matter, anyway. He’ll win this fight.

The audience is roaring his opponent’s name. They always are, but by the end it’s his name echoing around the arena, every time—not that Champion is much of a name. One day it will be the other way around.

His opponent is a massive creature with horns down its back. It’s glittering, he thinks at first, before he realizes it’s electricity sparking off its scales. He hasn’t tried the arm against that before, but whatever the robotics inside it run on, it’s not electricity; he should be fine.

It goes fast. The creature is sentient, but that's a disadvantage as much as it's anything else.

It gets a lucky hit in on his leg with its spiked tail, and another over his back—but that one is on purpose. That’s what makes him a good fighter: knowing how to take a hit so he can give one. The creature takes a moment to marvel at it’s success, at the gash splitting across Shiro’s back. It sees blood, thinks it has him, and it gets sloppy.

Shiro takes the shot, a swift blow to the back of its neck that slices through armor, scale, and bone in a shower of sparks and electricity. It snakes up his arm, buzzing with ozone, but it doesn’t hurt. Aside from the blood he can feel dripping down his back and leg, he’s fine.

The crowd roars. They when he wins, but they like it better when they get to decide how he finishes his opponents off; he’s learned to take the choice away from them.

It’s not until the fight is over that the fear catches up with him.

It’s been so long since he had anything to be scared of, but Keith’s been alone the whole time. Hours at least, between the prep and the fight and the clean up. They send him to the showers, and then to the infirmary, and t should be a relief to finally be clean, but his mind is spinning on possibilities and worst case scenarios. By the time they're at the hallway that ends in his cell, he’s so on edge that the only thing keeping him from running the rest of the way is the presence of the guards at his back. It’s a gallows walk.

They shove him inside his cell, as if he won’t go on his own.

He’s prepared for anything, he tells himself, but his heart is in his throat.

For a hollow moment he thinks Keith is gone, but then he turns; Keith is where he found him that first day, huddled against the wall to the right of the door. The black suit he found him in is clutched in his arms, his face hidden in it against his knees.

Shiro kneels before him. "Hey."

Keith pulls his head up slowly. His eyes are hazed again, sweat beading on his forehead. He blinks like he can't quite focus on Shiro, but then recognition breaks across his face. The sound he makes is soft, relieved; he tips forward into Shiro's chest, settling into his space like he belongs there.

He does. They fit together, Shiro thinks, heart skipping where Keith's ear is pressed to his chest.

"You're ok," Keith mumbles against the clean cloth, and huffs in a breath. It's not a question.

"Yeah," Shiro confirms. "Are you?"

Keith doesn’t answer. He raises his head and, without any preamble, presses a clumsy kiss to the corner of Shiro's lips.

It's desperate and sweet. He's still filthy, still smells like sweat and sex; the hair under Shiro's fingers is sticky with it as he cups the back of Keith's head and pulls him in and returns the kiss with an open-mouthed one of his own. Keith's lips part under his. He tilts the head in his hands, deepening the angle until he tastes blood from Keith's split lip. It's artless, and the best he's ever had.

A moan vibrates up Keith's throat, catching against Shiro's lips. He snakes his arm over Shiro’s shoulder, pulling him in tight, nails digging in right against the wound.

He can’t stop the pained gasp it tears from him.

Keith pulls away at the sound, eyes wide and wounded, like he's the one that's bleeding. "You're hurt."

The heat haze is gone in worry as he stands and pulls Shiro under the light, turning him. His fingers glide over the seams in the black cloth until he finds the zipper at the back of Shiro's neck. The cool air of the cell is a shock, but Keith's fingers are warm—too warm. That's going to be a problem, soon.

He pushes the cloth open and off Shiro's shoulders until the gash is exposed in full; Shiro hasn’t had a chance to test its edges. He has no idea how bad it is. Keith stills behind Shiro, not moving, not breathing.

Bad, then.

They spread something over it after his shower, something to stop the bleeding and prevent an infection, but it did nothing for the pain. It must be deeper than he thought, because the ache is bone deep once he focuses on it, and he’s shaking against Keith’s fingers as he traces edges of it. No—Keith is shaking.

"How does it look?" he asks, not really wanting to know. His body is already mapped in scars; he stopped keeping track after they took his arm.

Keith presses a wet kiss to the top of his spine instead of answering, right above the wound, and then another, higher up, at the edge of his undercut.

Easy. Everything with him is easy.

“Is that it?” Keith asks against his skin, voice tight.

There’s a moment where Shiro could lie—should lie, but instead he shakes his head. “Just my leg.” He motions to the cut on his left thigh that’s hidden by the black cloth. They gave him a replacement suit, but not a new over-shirt.

Keith takes a moment, silent in way he can’t interpret, before he scoots back around to kneel in front of Shiro. It looks like there's something he wants to say, but he searches Shiro’s face for a moment and shakes his head, pulling Shiro's head down to rest against his shoulder with a hand on the back of his neck.

He holds him there for a long moment, before his breath ghosts over Shiro’s ear. "We're going to get you out of here," he whispers, right there, so soft he almost misses it.

It's—a _relief_.

Shiro feels a smile split his face.

It’s a relief—not because he thinks he’s going to get out, but because he’s suddenly sure Keith is. Shiro’s fate is written on the floor of the arena, or the slab table in the medical ward. He’s going to die here, on this ship, and no one will remember him for long, but Keith is going to live. He has a way out, a life ahead of him, people helping him.

The knowledge sends warmth kicking through his chest. He revels in it for a moment, and in the long fingers pressed against the back of his neck, and the thin shoulder and muscle under his forehead, breathing it in. He smells sharp, like old sweat and sex, but it’s perfect.

He stays there, not moving, until Keith stutters forward and his fingers clench reflexively against Shiro’s neck. When Shiro raises his head, Keith’s eyes are glassy again. It’s time.

He spreads his hands over Keith’s back, soothing. Keith arches into the touch instinctively, sighing. They don’t need a repeat of last time; Shiro’s mind skips over options, trying to figure out what will work best and hurt least. Keith hasn’t had a shower and a trip to the infirmary. He’s still raw and overworked and objectively filthy, though somehow that doesn’t matter. There’s something off with Shiro’s perception of the body in his arms—Keith should be disgusting, and he is, but it’s like two contrary images overlaid on top of each other. He _is_ , and he’s perfect. It shouldn’t work like that.

Something in the periphery of his mind tells him he knows what this is, even if he's never experienced it before, but he doesn't let himself focus on that thought.

"Can I try something?" he asks, for the second time.

Keith gives him a half-smile and nods. He lets Shiro flip him over, laying down on his stomach. Shiro raises his waist with both hands, so he’s propped up on his knees. It’s awkward with his busted shoulder, but Keith rests his head in the crook of his unhurt arm and they make it work.

They’re both breathing hard in anticipation. He smooths his hands down Keith’s back, pushing up the stained half-shirt Keith’s been wearing until he’s totally exposed. His back is one long line of sinew and muscle, beautiful under the fading bruises—beautiful with them. Beautiful any way.

Shiro dips, lathes a tongue down his spine, and lower. Keith gasps; Shiro feels the ribs under his fingers expand with it, and contract. He’s running on instinct, but Keith tastes like sweat, like salt, like himself, and it’s easy. Everything with him is easy.

He dips his tongue inside, over the tight muscle there, and then down, pulling his hips up higher.

Keith makes a shocked sound that slides into a groan. The muscle under his hands goes tight as he noses against the hair there. Something at the edge of his mind taps his shoulder, asks what he’s doing, but he shoves it away. This is so far beyond him; he has no idea what he’s doing, but he wants it. He goes deeper, and Keith keens, pushing against him, and suddenly Shiro is the only thing holding him up. The tear across his back burns at the effort, but it’s not enough to abate the heat coiling low in his gut.

He keeps at it until Keith is breathless, shuddering apart against him. It takes minutes, and more, and he could keep going, he realizes with a start. There’s a line of drool running down his chin, and he wants it. He wants to stay right there, Keith warm and panting in his arms; he wants it any way he can get it.

But Keith is past ready, barely twitching and making little, needful sounds that pull at his chest and send desire thrumming through him.

Shiro pulls off him and turns Keith over, careful. He’s a wreck. His skin is sheened with sweat and his lip is stained with blood where he’s bit it open again. He blinks away the wetness rimming his eyes, trying to meet Shiro’s gaze. His mouth opens, working, like he’s trying to talk but can’t manage words past his own need.

It lays him low.

 _You’re beautiful_ , he wants to say, but it still doesn’t feel like his place. He’s never going to leave this ship, but Keith has a life ahead of him. He bends, instead, mouthing over him.

Keith comes at the first touch, and there’s no chance to pull back before his face and hair are ruined.

Before he can get past the shock of it or wipe at his face, Keith fists a hand in his hair and pulls him up. The kiss tastes like blood and salt and a dozen bitter things he doesn't want to name. It's bruising, and Shiro can’t find solid ground in it, in any of this.

“Sorry,” Keith says against his lips, when they finally pull apart. It’s breathless. His lips are red and wet from the kiss—from Shiro, and the mess on his face.

But Shiro hovers above him, braced on one arm, memorizing his edges and the curve of his mouth. “It’s fine.”

They stay that way for a moment, catching their breath, and then a smile splits Keith's face. He brings up his filthy shirt, dabbing at Shiro’s face with a little smile that tugs at one corner of his mouth. It’s hopeless; they’re both ruined. He laughs at the effort, and Keith’s smile widens, parting the break in his lip again.

He brings up both arms, curving around Shiro’s back, mindful of the wound, and pulls him down. For a moment Shiro is worried he’ll crush him, but Keith only sighs and wraps him in tighter. They resettle like that, Shiro with his head flat against Keith’s chest, legs tangled with Keith’s behind him. 

“How’s your shoulder?” Shiro asks.

Keith blinks down at him and raises his arm above them, flexing it speculatively. “Better.” He lowers it to Shiro’s back, brushing his fingers over the bare skin where the suit is still unzipped. The cooling desire in the pit of stomach flares back up at the touch, but it’s low and easy to push to the back of his mind. It feels good to be touched, to be held, to feel a heartbeat under his ear.

“I’m sorry,” Keith says again. From this angle, Shiro has look up at him through his white bangs.

Shiro doesn’t know what he’s referring to this time, but there’s a depth to it he doesn’t want to acknowledge. “It’s fine—“

“No, I’m sorry,” Keith repeats, insistent. “You didn’t choose this.” His voice is tight.

“It’s not that bad. This isn’t even the worst hotel I’ve stayed in,” he mumbles against Keith’s chest, trying to make light.

“What’s a...? No, that’s not what I meant. This—“ He motions to where his legs are hooked with Shiro’s, to the mess covering them both. “You didn’t ask for _this_.”

This, being him.

His eyes are downcast, and it’s not affected. There’s no show about him; everything is genuine, written in clear lines across his face. He doesn’t think Shiro wants him, but there’s no possible way to put what Shiro needs to say into words.

 _You’re going to get out of here. You’re going to be ok._   But no—that’s what he needs to hear, not Keith.

He braces himself up on both arms so he can look Keith in the eye.

“I wish I’d met you somewhere else.” It’s not what he means to say, at all. Keith’s eyes go wide. “I wish I could have gotten to know you,” he corrects, and then, softer, “and I wish you weren’t here, but I’m glad you are.”

It’s nonsense, but Keith brings a hand up to brush the hair out of Shiro’s eyes and cup his cheek. “You know I’m going to get you out of here,” he says.

He sounds like he means it—like it matters to him. Shiro feels a smile tug the corners of his mouth. He lets Keith pull him down into a soft kiss. It’s unhurried and easy, but the hand on his back slides lower, inching under the black cloth still covering his hips. Shiro has to pull away. “Keith—“

“Can I touch you?” 

If he had a chance of making it out of this, it’s gone in those words.

Shiro breathes a quiet, “Yeah,” because he can’t deny Keith anything, and sits up. Keith follows, kneeling in front of him. He’s single minded about it, peeling back the cloth until his chest is totally exposed and the suit is hanging open around his abs.

His scars suddenly seem fatal—hideous. There’s so many, and there’s nothing romantic about torn flesh healed wrong. But Keith doesn't hesitate, fingering along the edge of the one below Shiro's collarbone and then bends forward, pressing his lips against it.

Shiro’s gasp takes them both by surprise. “Bad?” Keith whispers against his skin.

It’s not, but the tissue is too numb to feel touch, and it translates somewhere deeper down and it feels strange. Shiro shakes his head, and Keith continues, trailing his lips down the length of it. He hasn’t been touched like this in so long—maybe never in his life. Not like this. The feeling of lips against his skin and scars, and the bare edge of teeth—

He gasps again. Keith blinks up at him, through his bangs; he’s still beautiful, even as a mess. There’s hunger in his gaze, but it’s clear-eyed. He shifts against Shiro with purpose, moving his thigh to the vee of his legs, pressing in and up against the cloth and hardness there. It’s unexpected, and it wrings a soft sound out of him; Keith seizes on it.

“You want this,” he whispers against Shiro’s neck.

“Keith, you—“ He gasps out something that’s between a laugh and moan. “You can’t think I don’t want you.”

He’s got nothing left to lose; he spreads a hand between Keith’s shoulder blades and pulls him in tight, until they’re pressed together completely and Keith can feel where Shiro is hard line against him.

But he’s not alone. It’s a shock. Keith’s gaze is still sharp; he rolls his hips against Shiro, forcing another moan that he catches against his lips. And then there are long fingers working under the black cloth, pushing it down until there’s nothing between them.

He’s unpracticed, but Shiro is so close to gone it hardly matters. He’s can’t even focus enough to return the kiss Keith is pressing against his lips. It’s been so long. He ends up breathing open-mouthed against Keith's cheek while Keith brings them off.

When he comes, it’s quiet and devastating, but Keith isn't. He keeps moving against Shiro where he's oversensitive, to the edge of pain, and then cries out. It's hoarse, half-muffled against Shiro's cheek, and sweet. Shiro registers Keith wrapping his arms around his waist, pulling him in close while he pulls himself back together.

“I’m glad I met you, too,” Keith says against his neck after they’ve caught their breath.

He’s talkative after that, for some reason. Shiro is too tired to reciprocate it, but Keith doesn't seem to mind. The wound makes it to lean against the wall or sleep on his back, so Keith pulls him to his chest and lets Shiro rest his head on his shoulder and an arm over his waist, though he must be heavy. He falls asleep to a weight in his chest and Keith’s voice whispering some innocuous story against his hair. Nothing the Galra will care about, but it’s sweet and soft and he doesn’t take it for granted.

In the morning, the guards come again.

Shiro snaps awake to Keith zipping up his black prisoner garb, a moment before the door is clanging open.

The guards eye them dispassionately. “You have a fight,” he says, as they always do.

It’s too soon. His wounds are still aching and stiff, but he doesn't have a choice. He goes.

This time he shares a look with Keith before he leaves. He looks strong—he is strong, Shiro reminds himself, over the foreboding pounding down his spine. He's stronger than Shiro.

Keith nods at him. There’s trust in it, and something else he can’t identify, but spends the entire walk to the arena turning over and over in his mind.

His opponent is another prisoner.

They do this, sometimes. It’s a punishment, or a means of dispatching the ones they don’t need anymore—the ones someone will care to see die. A quick death is the best he can offer, and it still leaves a sour taste in his mouth.

But after that comes another, and another. They always fight, because they think they'll be let go if they win, and there was a time when Shiro considered letting them, but not anymore.

When it's over, a different set of guards lead him back to the cell.

The halls aren't empty this time; there are armored Galra running down one hallway, and his guards are muttering at the commotion.

The foreboding kicks back up in full force; before he gets to the cell, he knows what he’ll find inside.

Nothing.

Keith is gone.

There's an empty moment after the door closes. He turns around, double checking, like there's something more to see than the floor and four bare metal walls. Even the heap of black cloth is gone from the corner, but the room still smells like him—like them. It's a ridiculous thing to find comfort in, but he leans against the wall, ignoring the line of pain on his back, and breathes it in.

It’s what he wanted, he reminds himself, and can’t parse the feeling rolling through him. It’s triumph, but there’s an edge to it that cuts.

 _Why didn’t you take me with you?_ a tiny part of him wonders, before he crushes it.

Why would he?

It doesn’t occur to him until the second day—the thing twisting in his gut is loneliness. In a year on the ship, he’s never felt it like this. He’s missed Earth, missed his family, missed the Holts and fresh air and someone to talk to, but not like this. What was tolerable boredom before is a phantom pain now, like another missing limb.

Ridiculous, he tells himself, to feel like this over someone he knew less than a week, but maybe it’s an inevitable break. Maybe this was always going to be too much to deal with eventually.

Keith was just the catalyst.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Time is hard to mark on the ship.

At least a week passes before his next fight, and his first words to the guards are to ask where Keith is, because he has no reason not to. There are four this time, double the usual, which is almost all the confirmation he needs that Keith made it off the ship.

They don’t answer, don’t even look at him. If he was dead or captured, they would gloat. They gloated about the Holts and the work colony they were sent to. They gloat about everyone he tries to save. Silence is a comfort for the next few minutes, until the guard in the lead stops suddenly, and spins on Shiro. His yellow eyes are pinched in anger, a level of emotion he’s not used to seeing from the Galra—

“He tried to escape. Your Marmora rat took out three guards before we caught him.” There’s a viciousness to his words, a personalized cruelty. “We sent him out an airlock. He was too much trouble to keep around.”

There’s a bare pause while the other guards shuffle and stare at their companion, and Shiro tries to remember how to breathe.

It’s a lie, he tells himself, but the Galra have never lied to him before, and why would they? They have control over him, over his body, over his life, over _everything._ Lies aren’t worth their time.

An airlock. They sent him out an airlock.

There’s something trying to crawl its way out of his throat. He can’t breathe past it, can’t distinguish the distant roar of the arena from the rush of blood in his ears. The image of a body floating stiff and prone in open space is the only thing he can see behind his eyes, no matter how many times he tells himself to not imagine it.

The fight goes poorly.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The message comes down on the frequency Kolivan reserves for emergencies of the highest order, but it’s redundant. Ulaz has already heard.

An infiltration mission gone wrong. Their most precious asset captured.

Keith is a special case. It’s one thing to lose a brother, but it’s quite another to lose the child they’ve raised for a decade or more. The Blade doesn’t operate by dwelling in worst case scenarios, but if they had one, this is it.

It’s all they talk about on the prison ship that first day after the capture. By the time Ulaz has a chance to do something about it, it’s too late. He overhears them talking in the mess, about drugging the boy and leaving him in the cell with the Champion, and his heart stops in his chest.

Torture is one thing. Torture Keith can survive. He’s strong and smart, full of the kind of determination and conviction that most of them would give an arm and a leg for—but he’s also painfully young, and what they’ve done to him isn’t simple cruelty. There are stories of Galra that have killed themselves over the dishonor of it, and Keith is honor incarnate.

And young. He’s so young. 

Ulaz takes the first break he can and tries to meter his steps to hide his panic as he makes his way down the hallways to the cell block. The other Blades on the ship will know by now, but as the medical officer that removed the Champion’s arm and replaced it with something worse, he’s the only one with a valid excuse to be there.

He steels himself for what he’ll see, before he peers inside the cell, but—

The scene doesn’t immediately make sense. There’s no blood, no bare skin, none of the horrors he’d imagined. Instead, Keith has a prisoner’s shirt on, big enough that it covers most of his modesty, and he’s sleeping in the Champion’s lap, wrapped up in long arms. The only part of him that’s visible are his pale legs, and a few locks of dark hair under the Champion’s hand. Their faces are tilted toward each other in sleep.

No, not quite asleep. The hand in Keith’s hair is moving. Ulaz flashes back to nights spent petting away Keith’s nightmares when he was new to them, and scared.

The Champion twitches and blinks and wakes, eyes darting to the window on some instinct—to Ulaz, looking in at them. His demeanor changes in an instant, all softness gone. He curves around the body in his arms, like he can hide Keith from what the Galra want to do to him. As if he has that power.

Shiro, Ulaz remembers later. That’s his name. The Champion is young, too, and newer to this life than Keith is, and his name is Shiro.

The next time he comes, the scene has shifted. Keith is lying on his back, and Shiro is resting between his legs, his head lying low on Keith’s stomach. Keith has a hand in his hair, almost petting, and they’re smiling at each other.

He’s turning away even before Shiro’s eyes catch his in a glare.

Keith’s smiles are rare. They have a running tally at headquarters of who’s earned one, and he’s never smiled at any of them like that—never smiled at _anything_ like that. That’s the first moment he starts to see the shape of what’s happening, the inevitability that’s bearing down on them. They’re moving pieces as fast as they can, trying to get Keith out, but it won’t be fast enough to prevent this.

The last time is the worst.

Shiro doesn’t spot him, because Shiro’s head is down on Keith’s shoulder. The back of his black prisoner garb is unzipped, revealing a wound on his back. It must be from the arena. It’s horrific, stretching from his shoulder blade, across his back, and down, wide and un-stitched and colored with gore. They’ve treated it with something to stop the bleeding, but the pain must be incredible.

Keith has a hand on the back of his neck. This time it’s his eyes that meet Ulaz’s in the window, over Shiro’s back.

They widen with recognition. He gives a half-smile, and then his lips are at Shiro’s ear, moving against it, saying something.

Intimate, again, and something more.

It sends foreboding shivering down his spine. He can get Keith out, maybe, but he’ll have to play all his cards to do it, and Shiro is the best guarded prisoner on the ship. He would be recognized anywhere, and they can’t risk it.

There’s no way through this for them.

 

 

* * *

 

 

An hour—that’s all the time Ulaz has.

They’re executing prisoners, and there are more efficient ways to do it but having them ostensibly fight the Champion for their freedom in the arena is the most entertaining. Keith is alone, unguarded in the cell.

It’s child’s play to bring down the cameras long enough to get in and out, but by the time he’s done they only have minutes left.

The cell _reeks_. The scent is unmistakable, and he has to stop and gather himself against it. Before he can get his bearings, there are two arms around his neck in a choking hug.

“Are you hurt?” Ulaz asks, trying to breathe through his mouth, because Keith is ground zero for the stench permeating the room. It’s the smell of heat, he realizes dispassionately, which isn’t new information but hits him particularly in that moment.

Keith shakes his head against Ulaz’s chest and then lets go. Ulaz doesn’t have to say anything; he’s already stripping out of the soiled shirt and pulling on the suit he was captured in.

“How much time do we have?” Keith asks.

“Not long.”

They fly down the hallways, avoiding guard patrols. They’re headed toward the ship bay, but Keith doesn’t know that. It’s a cruelty to keep it from him, and a mercy.

He knows the moment Keith realizes where they _aren’t_ going, because Keith stops dead in his tracks. Ulaz pauses and turns back to him.

Keith's eyes are wide, understanding, and something like scared. His jaw works for a moment before he finds his words. “We have to get him,” he says, voice hoarse. “I can’t—I can’t leave him here.”

There’s no answer for that Ulaz can give; none Keith will want to hear. Keith must know that it’s impossible, but the cool pragmatism he usually prizes is warring with something else on his face. It’s painful to watch.

“There’s no time,” he says to Keith softly, when he’s waited as long as they can. “We have to go.”

Keith breaks eye contact, blinking down at the floor. Precious seconds tick by, and for a moment Ulaz wonders if he’ll be able to move past it at all, or if he’s going to have to heave the boy over his shoulder and carry him off the ship.

But finally he takes a deep breath and nods. “I’ll come back for him,” he says, sounding sure.

It’s a promise, but Ulaz doesn’t know how he’s going keep it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“You can’t be serious.”

Keith’s eyes narrow at Kolivan, and yes—he’s deadly serious. Ulaz could have told him that. Ulaz _tried_ to tell him that.

“I won’t leave him—“ Keith starts, in a perfect mimic of the same thing he’s said a dozen times already. He’s washed, at least, so they can all stand to be inside the same room with him. The only untenable thing is the soiled prisoner garb he has clutched in his hands. The smell of it is almost enough to make Ulaz’s eyes water.

Kolivan sighs. “We operate on secrecy. You know this. The presence of a Galra asset will put us at risk.”

It's the wrong thing to say.

“He’s not an asset!” Keith is livid, and this is going to get worse before it gets better if Kolivan doesn't realize what he's dealing with.

“No, he’s a _weapon_ ,” Kolivan shouts back, harsher than is strictly necessary.

They’ve been at it for hours, circling around the same truth. Antok makes eye contact with Ulaz from his position against the wall across the room. Someone is going to have to say it, eventually.

“I don’t care. I’m not leaving him,” Keith says, again.

Kolivan throws up his hands. “This is ridiculous. You’re acting like you—“ He blinks. “Like you—“ He cuts himself off, face falling, because yes, that’s exactly what Keith is acting like and everyone else has been aware of this since he got on the ship reeking of someone else and of something sweet.

Galra have a tendency to fixate and latch on. When they find something to fight for, to care for, to _love_ , they don’t let go of it easily. All of them know this because all of them are Galra, and though it’s easy to forget sometimes, Keith is too.

“Keith...”

Keith won’t meet his eyes, staring instead at the scrap of cloth in his hands.

Kolivan wipes a hand over his face and sighs. “That’s filthy,” he mutters. “You should at least wash it.” He goes to grab it between two claws, probably reminded of the dozens of times they’ve had to steal Keith’s jacket and give it a dousing just to loosen the dirt off it a little.

But Keith snarls at him—actually snarls, before he can even get a hand on it, clutching it closer to his chest.

“I’m going to get him. I’ll do it on my own if I have to.”

There’s a movie about this, somewhere. A bad movie—one of the ones they pick up a sixth-hand copy of from some backwater planet and watch obsessively at headquarters until they can all act it out backward. Keith could be decked out in a cape and armor, standing on some hillside, wind rustling his hair.

Instead he looks—lost. The same way he looked when they first brought him there, orphaned and alone and untrusting that he would ever not be.

Kolivan sighs again and settles on the bed beside him. “That won’t be necessary,” he says, finally.

It’s not a bad decision. The Champion is a weapon, is an asset, and he can be both to them if they get him in time—but it does take time.

And time, in this game, is almost always fatal.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The fight is almost a draw.

Shiro’s movements are too slow, sluggish in grief because he still can’t move past the cold hallway and the words _out an airlock_. It’s so senseless—that’s what his mind fixates on. It’s a waste. He had something incredible, something precious, and they threw it away like it was trash.

The best thing in his life, a stiff body, floating through open space—the image of it flickers before his eyes for a moment, and when he blinks it away the clawed fist is already headed for his face.

There’s no time to block. He jerks back, as far as he can, but not far enough. It slices across the bridge of his nose, the blood and pain blinding him for another fatal moment. He rolls on instinct, but too late to avoid a second hit to chest. It's glancing, but something snaps in it.

He wins the fight blind, his arm going through the creature's chest on a lucky hit as it goes in for the kill.

They drag him back to cell without stopping at the infirmary, and he recognizes peripherally that it’s a punishment. This is the only way the Galra have left to discipline him for not fighting hard enough. Everything else he had is gone; this is it—skin and bone and blood. That’s all they have left to take from him.

They can have it.

He doesn’t move from the spot where they drop him. The wound on his face won’t close. Head wound, he thinks distantly as blood pools under his cheek and cools in his hair. Head wounds always bleed too much. But it must be worse than that, or something else, because he doesn't notice his cell door opening until someone utters a quiet, " _No_ ," from the doorway.

He doesn’t raise his head off the floor and the slick puddle under his cheek.

“Shiro?” it asks, and sends recognition kicking up in the back of his mind before he shoves it away. “Hey,” the voice chokes out, right above him. The fingers on his neck are warm and calloused and familiar. “Shiro, can you hear me?”

The hand moves to his chin, turning him, rolling his head so he’s facing the light. He blinks at it, trying to gather his bearings.

“What’s wrong?” another voice asks from further away.

There’s no answer, but the fingers on his face skate over the gash. The touch is light, but it’s still painful enough that it cuts through the haze of grief and fatigue. He tries to rise, but can’t make it far, but the hands go to his shoulders, propping him up.

“Keith, we don’t have time.”

_Keith._

“I’ll get him,” says a deeper voice from the doorway, but then there are hands under his arms and legs, and he’s being hoisted up.

“No, I’ve got him." The voice does sound familiar; the hands are firm and gentle. "I've got you," the voice repeats, but quieter and right against his ear. "I've got you."

It's the last thing he hears.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Shiro wakes up warm, with breath in his hair and an arm over his chest. He only has a few seconds to register it—the unfamiliar ceiling overhead, the soft sheets under his back, the tightness across his face and back that he finally identifies as bandages—before the body pressed along his side shifts.

"You're awake," says a soft voice, painfully familiar.

He closes his eyes.

"Hey," it says again, and there's a hand on the side of his face. "It's ok."

It's not.

It's unreal, and he's going to wake up in the cell again with blood on his face and on his hands and  _nothing_. He has nothing if he doesn't have this, but it's not real.

The hand on his face moves to his hair, pushing his bangs aside. "Look at me," it says.

It's the hardest thing he's had to do since this started. He braces himself for the view of the bare metal ceiling he's woken up to for the last year, but when he opens his eyes, he can't see anything but black hair and pale skin. Before he can register what that means, there are lips against his forehead, dry and warm. 

“I told you I'd get you out,” Keith says against his skin, and then pulls away.

He's—alive. Bright eyed and clean and _alive._ He's smiling at Shiro from inches away, eyes searching, almost concerned.

 _You're alive,_ Shiro tries to say, but can't work the words out past the weight on his chest, his heart in his throat. The image of a body floating frozen in space plays out before his eyes again. He can't shake it, can't shake the pervasive feeling of loss.

Keith huffs a little laugh. “If you cry, it’ll mess up your bandage,” he whispers, but it's too late.

That's it. The hug he pulls Keith into is bruising without meaning to be, but Keith leans into it, solid and strong. It shifts after a moment, and then he's the one crushing Shiro to his chest. His arms are like a vice. It sends up a flicker of recognition; someone carried him off the ship—

"I told you. I told you I would get you out," Keith repeats, but softly, to himself.

Shiro presses into his hair, breathing in the clean scent of it. "Yeah. You did." He laughs, and even though it comes out hoarse and disbelieving, he means it. "You saved me."

Keith starts at that and pulls away, wide eyed, like this has only just occurred to him. Shiro laughs again because this—this really is the best thing he's ever had, he realizes. He leans in, until they're breathing the same air.

"Thanks," he says, right against Keith's lips, voice still hoarse. "Thanks for saving me."

And then he presses in close, and he doesn't let go.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Come request whatever you'd like on [tumblr](http://arahir.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/arahir)!


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